Girl Code Page 8

  I stared blankly at him for a few seconds as reality set in. My brother had a serious drug problem. He had stolen tens of thousands of dollars and probably financially crippled my family, and I knew it wouldn’t end there. I knew things would only get worse. And my mother…we never had much of a relationship since she was always focused on Tack, but for the first time in my life, I actually felt like she didn’t like me at all. My cousin Mayson, who I admittedly loved the most between her and Emmy, was just as out of control as Tack, if not worse, and…just gone. Just like my brother, gone. Before the drugs, my brother was…everything. He gave me the love I never got from my parents. He cared for me, protected me, and made me laugh and smile and feel wanted. I adored him, I looked up to him, and I respected him…and all of that was just fucking gone.

  I burst into tears and Leo didn’t hesitate before pulling me into his arms. As usual, he smelled like the sea, citrus, and leather; it soothed me just as well as his hands circling on my back.

  “I know I’m being stupid for crying like a small child,” I said and tried to pull away.

  “Stop,” he said gently and pressed my head back to his shoulder. “You’re not being stupid. You’re scared and you’re heartbroken. You have every reason to cry.”

  “I feel…” I struggled not to cry harder, struggled to keep the large wailing sob that was sitting in my chest from breaking free. “I feel so fucking alone here, and my mom…I don’t know what I ever did to her to make her hate me like that.”

  I felt Leo stiffen a little, and his voice came out icy at first. “Your mom should have never said any of that shit to you, and I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t matter what she thinks, because it does. She’s your mom. You want her to fucking like you and love you, that’s natural, and she should, but don’t waste any more tears on someone like that. There isn’t anything wrong with you, there is something wrong with her. And, Tabs…” His voice softened again and his body relaxed against mine. “…you’re not alone. Maybe here in this house it may feel like it, but you’re not alone. You have Leslie, and you have me and Sandy and your other friends. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Don’t tell me everything is going to be okay when everything is clearly insane,” I argued as more tears streamed down my cheeks, soaking Leo’s shirt. “My mother hates me. My brother is a hardcore drug addict and thief. My dad will probably hide his head back in the sand by the end of the day. Mayson is…god, she’s just so out there right now. She’s going to get hurt or just die, and Emmy is a selfish bitch. Oh yeah, and I don’t have college money or any money really because my mom is a lying, manipulative bitch. Clearly, nothing is going to be okay.”

  “I didn’t say that everything would be okay, Tabitha,” Leo said sternly. His arms held me closer, tighter. “I said that you will be okay. You are strong and brave and wicked smart, and you have the support of people that do love you.”

  I stood up straight and looked into his eyes, my brows pulled together in a question. I was about to ask him if he loved me, like my mouth was open and poised to ask the question when we heard the front door slam. I untangled myself from Leo’s arms and rushed to my window. Tack’s car was parked outside. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but before I could even turn back around, yelling began downstairs. My dad was shouting, Tack was shouting, and my mom was shouting. I always lived in a relatively quiet home. The loudest person in the house was Tack, and that was just because of his large personality. No one ever fought like that before the drugs, and it was scaring the hell out of me, especially with Tack’s newly acquired potential for violence.

  I didn’t know I was crying again until Leo came to me and cupped my face in his hands.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he said soothingly. “What’s happening down there can’t touch you in here. You are going to be okay.”

  Something smashed against a wall downstairs. I looked toward the door with wide eyes and a tight chest.

  “No, don’t think about it,” Leo said, gently turning my face back to his.

  “I have to go down there.” I was frantic. “Someone can get hurt.”

  “You can get hurt,” Leo argued.

  I didn’t know why I cared. Obviously, none of them cared about me, but I did care and I was scared shitless. The more I listened to the shit-storm downstairs, the harder it was for me to breathe.

  “Tabitha, calm down,” Leo said softly, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs.

  When I could barely focus on his words, he did, I guess in his mind, the only thing there was left to do short of tying me to a chair. He kissed me.

  Lips soft and full pressed delicately against my slightly opened mouth. A tiny, shocked whimper stumbled out of my throat and slipped through my parted lips even as my eyes closed on their own accord. Slowly and firmly, his lips moved against mine as the sounds of fighting downstairs became something that was happening far off in the distance. The curve of my bottom lip was gently tugged between two lightly moistened lips, and I was surprised by how good it felt, and even further surprised by the little moan I let free. I felt like I was falling into a dream. I had that not quite here and not quite there, disoriented feeling. I didn’t know if the shirt my fingers were gripping and twisting was real or not. The pain in my chest had numbed, and I wasn’t sure if it was ever really there. I didn’t even know where I was anymore, because all I saw was darkness and the only thing I could hear was the frantic beating of my own heart.

  Tentatively, Leo’s tongue glided into my mouth, testing, tasting, and searching. Reflexively, my own tongue collided with his and that time, the moan came from his mouth. Something very stupid happened then. Mandy Moore’s “Candy” started to play in my head. Candy, sweet, sugary, delicious and addicting. Oh, god, candy…candy that I could consume day after day and never tire of it. It was perfection for my mouth, exciting for my taste buds, and made my heart spin and leap and pirouette. And his particular brand of candy was galvanizing, making my entire body tremor with electric power.

  My bedroom door slammed open and I was jolted back to reality with a soft, wet noise as our lips pulled apart. Before the horror of what we’d just done could bloom, I took in my brother’s red face and the tears that were falling out of his eyes and everything else was forgotten.

  “I’m sorry,” Tack choked out in a sob. “I fucked everything up for you and I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t the same brother I knew, but he was still my brother and I couldn’t just leave him there crying. I went to him and let him wrap me in his big arms.

  Leo touched my arm briefly, a goodbye, an apology? Both? I heard my door close, felt the electricity drain out of my body and I knew he was gone.

  “This all boils down to if you believe in true love, the concept of ‘The One’. If you do then codes were meant to be broken. Is love a choice? If it is then you can and should be able to abide by the code, not just a girl code but a code of decency. A voice inside that says this isn’t okay. A voice that whispers STOP.”

  ~Kingston W., North Carolina, United States~

  Chapter Six

  A little more than a year later, I was okay, just as Leo said I would be. My brother went back into rehab and relapsed. My parents were still fighting over money, but I moved on. I got a part-time job at the delicatessen Leo’s parents owned and saved almost every penny I earned. I also picked up babysitting for a neighbor whenever I could. I worked hard in school and was rewarded with two scholarships to help pay for school. I even landed a job at the college bookstore and I would be starting in August, right after I moved into the apartment I would be sharing with a girl I had yet to meet. I didn’t want to have to ask or accept any help from my parents.

  A few days after my mom slapped me, she had made me oatmeal cookies, my favorite. That was her apology, not an actual verbal “I’m sorry, for slapping you and basically telling you I don’t love you.” Cookies, like cookies could fix everything. I didn’t eat them. With her watching on, I packed up every last cru
mb and handed them to Leo. That’s what I thought of her non-apologetic apology.

  My dad offered to buy me a decent used car, had it all picked out, all he had to do was go pay for it. I turned it down. He told me I was being ridiculous, but I refused to accept any monetary gifts from him or my mom. Instead of the two-year-old car he had offered to purchase for me, I bought myself a ten-year-old Subaru for next to nothing. It was next to nothing for a reason, though; it needed a lot of work done on it, but thankfully, Leo had been tinkering with cars since he was in grade school. He had helped me pick out the car and he did all of the repairs on it for me.

  Leslie and Leo had broken up again just before graduation. They were nice to each other in those last days of school, and he had kissed her after we had thrown our caps into the air, but the reason behind their breakup was unclear to me, and I didn’t pry. Leslie left for Duke at the beginning of July. She and Stacy Glen were going to stay with Stacy’s aunt or some other relative until their dorms were ready. I was a little jealous, admittedly. My best friend was now best friends with another girl, and they were going to college and starting a whole new life together a few states away from New Jersey, but it may as well had been another world. I wasn’t going very far, just to the University of Delaware, and even though at least two or three of my classmates were also going to the same school, it wasn’t the same as going with my best friend.

  Before she left, Leslie employed me with the task of delivering a box of Leo’s crap she had collected over the years. I had put it in my closet and forgotten about it, but I found it as I was packing for my own trip to college on a warm evening in late July. I threw in a couple of shots of my senior portrait that he had requested and hefted the box up for the short walk to his house. I wasn’t just delivering the breakup box; Leo had finished getting my car in safe running condition and I was going to get it.

  As I walked to his house, I stopped to adjust the box in my arms, shifting some of the contents inside in the process. I looked down and saw a framed picture of Leo and Leslie from Homecoming last fall. I didn’t remember who took the picture, but they caught my friends in a tender moment. They were lost in a kiss on the dance floor, Leslie with her Homecoming Queen crown perched in her hair. His arms were wrapped securely around her in a loving embrace and her fingers were laced behind his neck. You could see their smiles in their kiss, their mouths pulled up slightly at the corners, cheeks rounded. It was the perfect picture of eternal youth and love. My heart swelled with love for both of them, and god it hurt at the same time. I couldn’t deny that, I couldn’t run away from that. It hurt.

  Leo and I never talked about that kiss. I was a terrible best friend. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, because even all of that time later, my lips still felt the weight of his when I thought about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Leslie. And I should have, damn I know I should have, but I was selfish. I didn’t want to lose my best friend, not when I had already lost so much. I was pretty sure Leo never said anything to her, either. We went on as usual. We were still friends. We still fought like grade school children, and when things became too much at home, he and Leslie were always there to whisk me away. Once in a while, I’d catch him staring at me with a deep, thoughtful look on his face. Most of the time, he would hastily look away, but a few times I would stare back and wonder if he were thinking about that forbidden moment we shared. Then my face would glow an awful red, he’d smile devilishly, and I’d look away with irritation.

  I looked away from the picture in the box. I didn’t know what he was going to do with it, if he would hold on to it and look at it sometimes, if he’d put it on his bedside table after he moved out of his parents’ or if he would just throw it away instead of taking it with him.

  “Let it go,” I told myself in a low whisper as I walked up his driveway past my little black Subaru. I smiled at the car before going up the stairs and elbowing the doorbell. When Leo opened the door, he was clearly intoxicated. I could smell the whiskey on his breath from the other side of the screen door.

  “Wow. You smell pretty,” I said as I walked past him into his house.

  “I am so happy to see you!” He tried to hug me, but the box I was holding got in the way. “What’s this?”

  “A breakup box apparently.” I dropped the box on the coffee table. He looked at it with disdain and then went into the kitchen.

  “The pictures you requested are in there, too,” I said, following him.

  “Thanks. Do you want a drink?” he asked, producing an extra glass.

  “When mommy and daddy are away, the boy will play,” I said and put my hand up to refuse the glass.

  Leo’s parents left the store to Leo’s cousin Erica for the month while they went to Italy. Leo was joining them in a few days. So far, he hadn’t registered for school anywhere. I don’t think he knew what he wanted to do with his life.

  Leo poured whiskey into the extra glass anyway. “You’re drinking with me,” he insisted, holding it out to me.

  I didn’t particularly like drinking. The Rico Incident rather stole my teenage, underage joy in drinking, but I rolled my eyes and took the glass anyway.

  “One drink,” I said firmly.

  Leo grinned and then drained his glass in one gulp. I sipped on mine and made a face as the stuff burned going down.

  “Are you all ready for Italy?” I asked him. I pulled a kitchen chair out and turned it toward where he was standing at the counter before sitting down, hooking my feet on the side rungs of the chair in front of me.

  He sat down in the chair my feet were on and gave a noncommittal shrug as he poured another glass of whiskey. “Not really. I’m glad I’m going to see some of my family, but I can’t get excited about it right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “When I get back, you’ll be gone,” he said simply.

  “I’m only going to lower, slower Delaware. Less than an hour away.”

  “Yeah, but you won’t be here,” Leo said, looking at me.

  “Perfect.” I threw a hand up. “Because that means I’m not on the platform waiting for the crazy train with my family.”

  He spun around, swinging one leg over both of mine. He slid to the edge of his seat and reached for my chair. I let out a small yelp of surprise when he pulled me forward, closer to him. I was impressed that he moved me so easily. I wasn’t a cow, but I was by no means small or slim. I had plenty of pounds that I needed to drop, but Leo had moved me as if I weighed nothing, and then… my legs were caged between his. He was leaning forward, definitely in my personal space, and definitely not caring that he was.

  “I don’t think you understand what I am saying, Tabs,” he said, putting his hands on my thighs.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, or what you’re doing.” I gave him a sideways look that was clearly questioning his brainpower after so much whiskey.

  Leo rolled his eyes. “Damn it, Tacky, why do you have to talk so much?”

  I opened my mouth, to talk of course, but Leo shut me up. With his mouth.

  My immediate reaction was to pull away. I dropped my glass of whiskey as I tried to jerk away from him. The glass shattered on the floor and liquid splashed on my legs as Leo cupped the back of my neck with one hand and slid his other hand to my lower back. He held me in place as his tongue expertly swept over mine, prodding it to get up and play.

  It was at that moment that I had some idea of what it must be like for my brother and cousin to be addicted to drugs. Even if they managed to avoid it for some time, they could never have just one tiny taste, not a one, because they wouldn’t be able to resist completely caving in to their addictions. They wouldn’t be able to put it down again and walk away easily, no matter how bad it was for them, no matter the consequences. Just one taste of my favorite voltaic candy and I was so damn done for.

  My fingers found their way into his soft, dark hair and nothing else mattered except for his mouth connected to mine, and the hand on my neck and
the hand that slipped away from back and rested on my waist. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t give two shits if I suffocated as I tasted Leo’s whiskey flavored lips and tongue, but apparently, he did care about suffocating, because he broke the kiss. His fingers landed softly on my cheeks as he stared at me. We were both breathing heavily, as if we had been under water for too long.

  “I love you,” Leo whispered, his lips centimeters from mine. “I’ve always loved you and I can’t fucking ignore it anymore. I want to be with you, Tabitha. I’ll follow you to slower, lower Delaware.”

  “Lower, slower, Delaware,” I corrected in a stunned whisper.

  “Whatever the fuck,” Leo replied. “I’ll go wherever you go, baby. I love you so damn much.”

  Whatever Leo-induced coma I had been in began to loosen its fingers on my mind. Realization of what I just did again slapped into my brain and shook my insides. His words were weaving their way into my chest, forcing my heart to beat irregularly. I felt panic tapping in, too.

  I shook my head. “You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying,” I said, my voice high and unrecognizable.

  Leo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m…okay, drunk or whatever, but I know what the hell I’m saying, Tabitha. It’s the same shit I’ve been wanting to say for a very long time. Sober or drunk, I love you just the same.”

  “Stop saying it!” I said shrilly. “You don’t mean it. You love Leslie. Leo, you love Leslie! I know you guys aren’t together now, but you love her and she loves you.”

  He looked at me like I had just grown a second and third head and sprouted a single horn on each of my heads. “Yeah, we love each other, but that’s obviously not going to work, and that doesn’t change the fact that I love you.”

  “You can’t love me.” I pushed his hands off of me and attempted to pull my chair back and away from him, but Leo was quick for a drinker. He yanked on my chair until we were uncomfortably smashed together. I shoved at his chair with my feet, throwing myself off balance in the process. I fell backward out of the chair, my legs and feet getting tangled in his legs as he tried to grab me. Sharp pain shot into my right hand and arm as I pushed away from the chair and then got to my feet.